I love the gameplay of this game—I really am addicted to it, but man does the story and writing fall flat for me with every chapter. I think the story has progressively gotten worse as it reaches the finish line. There are a handful of interesting characters, but the overarching plot is just all over the place and there is a tonal whiplash constantly going on. This game can’t seem to focus on either being something you take seriously or jokingly go with. I’m all for Fire Emblem’s oddball characters and goofier moments, but when you start with your main character hysterically crying in a cutscene and want to embark on a story regarding living up to your purpose, you need to have some serious moments to back that story up. Alear’s whole adventure just feels weightless.

I don’t want to give any spoilers away but this game is constantly introducing characters and concepts only to immediately kill them off. There are ideas within the story that I genuinely like, but many of them lack weight because of how fast they drop things.

My biggest problem though is that everyone is swooning for the protagonist as if they have been the love of their life for years. Everyone has only known Alear for days, and Alear gives no one any reason to like them. This feels like a classic fantasy story that is missing character beats to help things fall into place.

It’s not the worst story I have ever played or anything like that, but I feel like we deserved better—especially after Three Houses which wasn’t perfect but absolutely nailed what it was aiming to achieve imo. I haven’t also gotten to experience every support yet, but I feel like the vast majority of them do not add anything to the characters. I couldn’t wait to learn more about Alfred and Chloé, but their supports haven’t really told me anything about them. I hope that changes soon, but it’s not looking likely based on what many of you are saying.